


Avalanche

by HandsOfGold



Category: Edguy (Band)
Genre: M/M, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 19:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20431394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsOfGold/pseuds/HandsOfGold
Summary: An avalanche is coming down...





	1. Reverie

Something pounded in his head. A splintering headache banged behind Jens’ forehead and penetrated the blackness in his mind. The cold wind gave alleviation, just enough for him to regain consciousness and not make him pass out from the pain. Still, the world around him was blurred and it took some time until the images shifted into a picture.

He seemed to be kneeling on a black stone staircase. Through a curtain of his own hair, which he oddly wore open; he was able to see wide, almost endless plains of a sickly green-brown colour behind a high, black iron fence. They stretched to the horizon and gave off a vibe of rot and sickness. The wind carried a foul smell.

When Jens turned around it felt like someone had decided to hammer an axe right into his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing a hand to his forehead, while phosphenes started dancing in his field of vision. The sudden dizziness vanished as fast as it had appeared.

Slowly and carefully he lifted his head again and dared to open his eyes. The sun, hiding behind thick, yellow clouds, was unable to blind his eyes, and thus Jens looked up to see the staircase leading up to a building that was best described as a castle.

It was not quite the romanticized version of cream-coloured walls, ivy, and roses that expected him – it was almost morbid. The walls had possibly once been gray, yet time had made them wither into a colour that was mostly black. The ever-green ivy had died away and tendrils without leaves entwined the two square shaped towers. The staircase looked wet and slippery, the entrance portal to which it would carry anyone who dared to climb these steps was old, brittle wood with a doorknocker of an ominous shape.

Arduously Jens came to his feet, trying to ignore the hammering in his skull. He set one foot onto the first step. His trembling hands clasped the unsteady banister. It took an improbable amount of labour to walk up the stairs, and as he had completed this task he leaned onto the cold wall, feeling as though he was to collapse right there.  
But he was not going to.

Jens took a deep breath before he let go of the little support he had and laid his hand on the door knocker. While his pale fingers lingered on it he was able to make out the shape of a goat head, adorned with impressive, winding horns and a tongue that was thoroughly un-goat-like. Between his fingers the eyes of the figure stared at him. It was only for the fraction of a second that they glared at him with flaming eyes.

Jens recoiled and instinctively closed his eyes. Something within was warning him, but where else could he go? The drops of sweat glistered on his temples and the pounding in his head became nothing but stronger. Jens closed his hands around the ominous goat, covering its eyes, pulled it back and knocked against the door.

The wood was rotten and moist, in fact so decayed that it could not withstand this little movement. The door broke into bits and pieces, and the air that streamed out of the room was so humid and foul that it robbed him of his breath. Once again there were black spots dancing in front of his eyes and he gathered himself again in the moment before he could fall.

Stumbling over the debris Jens entered the room behind the door. From somewhere underneath the wood a red glistering signalized the location of the goat’s head, yet it was of no more significance to the young man.

It was a wide hall with a high ceiling. On the opposite wall there were coloured glass windows, unbroken but dirty and dusty, colouring the light a dim, even fouler yellow than the sky outside had been. The floor was covered with traces of earth and something dry, brown. Jens prayed silently that it was not what it looked like, although the small rodent corpses scattered across the whole room proved him differently.

Continuing his way through the empty, unfurnished hall the dizziness increased. Again and again he stumbled over dried blood and old bones. Most of them were clean, on some the flesh was still rotting away. In the corner of his mind Jens wondered if the small animals had suffocated.  
The wind outside had gained power. It brushed through the hall, whirling up dust and dirt, howling chillingly. Jens was relieved to discover a small doorway into an adjacent room. The door was wide open and whole.

The relief he experienced when entering the silent chamber, however, did not last for long. Tall, yet faded unrecognizable figures on mural paintings threateningly stared down on him. There was a dusty, ebony bed in the corner, crowned by something gothic, a wooden construction reminding of filigree organ pipes.

Next to it stood a stool, upholstered with dark purple velvet. Between it and another one of this kind there was a high desk, similar to the bed. Its drawers were locked and covered with dust, like everything in the room – except for the mirror embedded into the backside of the table.  
Yet it was not the interior that deeply unsettled Jens. No, it was the fact that, despite the lack of windows, he was able to see everything clearly: the room was lit by a glooming red fire coming from a copper basin on three legs. Coal and other things that he did not want to know about were being burned in it. The flames and smoke cleansed the room of the foul smell; however they fumigated the room and bathed it in a terrible heat.

In front of the basin knelt absentminded a hooded figure whose back was the only thing Jens was able to see. It had not moved or even breathed while he had stood in the room, instead it knelt silently, as if sunken into deep prayer. Despite the heat a shiver ran down Jens’ spine. He wanted to turn around and move away, but just in this moment the figure stirred and began rising, fluently turning in the movement.

“Who are you,” he wanted to whisper, but his tongue was stuck to his throat. He did not dare to break the silence, and so the dread that befell him upon looking into the figure’s face could not break out of his mouth in form of gasps or screams.

In the firelight he could determine the fine facial features of a man his own age, yet slightly frailer, what his cadaverous face only emphasized. His high cheekbones were accentuated by cavernous cheeks and sunken, dull eyes surrounded by dark circles. Dark blonde locks spilled out from under the hood, reaching to the middle of his veiled body. Jens knew that this face was familiar – too familiar, and yet too strange. Still the words were stuck in his throat.

“You’ve come at last,” the man whispered hoarsely. His eerie eyes looked at Jens’ eyes, always, not bothering to look at any other feature of his. He seemed to know him well enough to not pay closer attention.

He took a step forward. The hand with which he now reached out for Jens was unnaturally pale, almost white, and bony.

“I knew you would come. Unleash me one day. That you haven’t forgotten. I’ve been waiting for too long...”

The hand shivered. Slowly it crawled closer to Jens. He stood frozen, frightened.

“To us, eternity is a mere second. A second is eternity. When will you lift our poor little souls... there is no God to do this here. Us He has forsaken... We can be saved by no one but the one who has not lost their belief in us... the eternal sinners... ending what He began...”

His word’s made no sense, but somehow they formed a connection to Jens. He knew whom he was facing – it was impossible, but suddenly he knew.

“No...”

It were the first words he spoke since he had awakened. A sad smile appeared on the man’s face.  
“You’ve never given up hope, have you... Jens?”, he asked, almost pitying.

“You wouldn’t have found the way otherwise. You wouldn’t have been able to break these seals and unleash me... But have no worries, Jens. Soon I will return. And I will break everything that has ever separated us...”

The smile grew sadder, colder. When the man’s hand touched Jens’ face he felt something exploding on his skin. The headache broke loose again, hammering pain overshadowing anything else, and the face of the man blurred into a wild mass of colours before it followed the rest of the room – sucked in by blackness.


	2. Avalanche

Somewhere, Jens Ludwig regained consciousness, bathed in sweat. His covers hung half on the ground, having been kicked away by feet that were desperately trying not to succumb to the blackness. He sat up rapidly in the bed and fell back down, trying to comprehend what he had seen. It had just been a dream – or hadn’t it?

Jens stood up shakily and wandered to the window on unsteady feet. The cool nightly air calmed his ragged breathing a little bit, but could do nothing to the unutterable dryness in his mouth, the splintering headache and the heat that was causing him to sweat. His hair was open, just like in the dream, and on his knees he could see stains of dirt and dust.

Jens put his head in his hands and energetically shook his head.

“Impossible,” he admonished himself. It was over and gone. There was nothing to be done anymore.  
Deciding that he would not sleep again Jens made his way to the bathroom at 4:30am. The ice cold shower helped to cool his body but not his mind.  
It was a Wednesday morning, nothing particularly exciting happened. Despite the darkness the weather announced itself to be gray and windy and tiring, even with the three cups of coffee that he had drunken until he heard the first noise from the other rooms. It took one minute until the shower went on, another five until his roommate entered, a towel around his head and a smile on his face.

“Two more days and it’s over!”, he announced joyfully before noticing his friend’s – roommate’s – dark stare.

“Nightmares again?”

Jens nodded and stared into the empty cup in front of him. He was unwilling to share his experiences in his dream, and usually Christian would understand, as he did today. He fell silent and buttered a piece of bread. He knew that Jens would not talk about his nightmares, although he could not explain why.

Their uncomfortable situation was interrupted by the letter slot’s rattling. Without a word Christian pushed himself away from the kitchen counter to return with a staple of paper. Muttering quietly to himself he sorted them.

“Rent bill... advertisements... newspaper... weird- wait, what is this?”

“Hmh?”, Jens asked without even looking.

“Weird ancient looking letter. Addressed to you,” Christian said and raised an eyebrow as he threw the letter over the table. His look told Jens everything that he suspected the letter could be – from a girl or a boy, for Christian’s mind there were no other options. Although he was quite attracted to old things he had accepted the fact that letters were simply out of vogue. But as Jens touched the letter he felt the same sensation running down his spine that had touched him with the look at the mysterious person in his dream.

Other people did not dream like him. From the time before Jens knew the incoherent, random fragments of dreams, the quick actions, the many things to see. It had not always been like this, but the before was so distant that he could not imagine it ever returning.  
Some people called it lucid dreaming, he believed. Spiritualists told him of the astonishing ability to astral travel. He called it his curse.

The first time a dream like this had occurred had been nine days after. When the first shock had been overcome and the tears had been all used up for first. They had been at the edge. Their vision had seemed so stabile that nothing would ever have changed it, but now the primary visionary was gone. “You cannot kill the dream by killing the dreamer”, he had once written, but for them the dream was dead.

The three of them had finished the final year of school without talking to each other. Their ways had parted, and whenever they had crossed again their looks had purposefully avoided the other. It hurt, but everything had hurt back then.

The first time he dreamt one of the cursed dreams he had sensed its difference to the others. In the belief that he might have sleepwalked or plainly imagined everything he paid no attention to the oddity of it – until the dreams reoccurred, again and again. Waking up he had felt whacked and exhausted, as if he had in fact not slept but truly spent the night walking through some foreign places.

He had thought it would stop with leaving home, but nothing had happened. Looking back at his first year of university Jens only remembered a blur of sleepless nights and tired days. His parents had first been happy about their son quitting his career as a musician and he had tried his best to make them proud. They knew how much what had happened had affected him and at some point he had regained the grasp on a life.  
Right now it looked as if everything was about to break apart again.

With shaking fingers he tore open the envelope and unfolded the piece of paper it held. The handwriting was unmistakeable.

Jens, it wrote.

“I knew you would come. Unleash me one day. That you haven’t forgotten. I’ve been waiting for too long... 

To us, eternity is a mere second. A second is eternity. When will you lift our poor little souls... there is no God to do this here. Us He has forsaken... We can be saved by no one but the one who has not lost their belief in us... the eternal sinners... ending what He began  
You’ve never given up hope, have you?

You wouldn’t have found the way otherwise. You wouldn’t have been able to break these seals and unleash me... But have no worries, Jens. Soon I will return. And I will break everything that has ever separated us...

His hands were no longer shivering but shaking violently. Unable to react Jens felt as if he was falling and spiralling down an endless swirl of pain and confusion. An icy shiver ran down his spine, although he could not feel it. Something was calling from far beyond.

He remembered the dream more vividly than he remembered talking to his roommate only seconds ago, and that was because he knew. He had deemed it impossible that the two events were connected in any way, but could it really be that these dreams had been sent to him on purpose to prepare him for a future task.

Could it be true that the gates of death had been opened solely for him? Could it be that his task was... to defy Death itself?

Jens believed that everybody had a task to fulfil in their lives, and that it was not granted to them to exit before. If by accident or not, it was no man’s right to decide over God’s creation or end something He had put into life.

Jens always had thought that the task he had been assigned at some point during his existence would be something simple, alike to entertaining people or delight them with music. Since this chance had been shattered there was no way that this could be his task, but not once in the previous years had he thought about his task again. Pushed the thought away with more success than he had pushing away the tears when he would play.

Could it now be this? Was this the reason why he had those dreams? Was it possible that a task could be impossible to fulfil, have to be replaced with something else? Something crazier? Something like invoking the dead?

Jens tore his eyes open and, ignoring Christian’s puzzled questions, rushed out of the door to their flat by slamming it. He knew where he had to go now.

\---

The forest laid dark and cold in front of him. Jens shivered without his coat; luckily it was not cold enough for snow, still cold enough to make him freeze. But that was peripheral.

Not bothered by the icy wind Jens made his way throughout the bare trees. He’d have found his way blindly, which was exactly what he did.  
The place he aimed for was an unimpressive opening in one of the massive rocks that shaped the landscape. Discovering it had been purely coincidental, but essential for their compositions nevertheless. After a narrow passage, through which Jens stumbled now, the way narrowed even further and was finally blocked by a stone wall which appeared to be the final end of the cave.

By grasping a notch situated above him Jens pulled himself up through the pitch black well that, meters and meters higher, revealed daylight. But only few meters above the floor he was able to exit the well and, having walked on for not quite a minute, stood in a huge hall in the heart of the mountain.

Indeed this hall looked like a throne room from long gone times, but for few years it had been their throne room. Although Christian would have been astonished by the cave Jens had not once even played with the thought of showing it to his new friend.

The hall was dark and as high as a tower. Jokingly they had given it the name ‘Dome of the Rock, reloaded’, but had never cared about giving it historical investigations or even telling anyone of its existence. Jens thought that this was maybe the one and only secret they had shared.

As he now stood inside the mountain hall he purposefully avoided the few rays of light that holes cast into the hall, instead seeking a dark place pressed to a wall. What had triggered the dream of last night? Had there been anything to trigger it at all? One thing was sure; if he wanted it to reoccur there was no better place than this.

Looking around he found his brain attempting to make up connections to the room in his dream, failing mostly. But it had to mean something that he place of the dream had been in a similarly high room, possibly a castle tower... or didn’t it have to be?

In these dark surroundings Jens became aware of all the memories that he had been constantly banishing as an attempt to cope with them. It was a poor attempt, he thought bitterly, when the most horrible picture of all lashed against the front of his brain, filling him with a pain that almost made him black out.

Blood, everywhere blood, contrasting against skin, so pale and fragile and thin...

Before Jens could help it a cry escaped his throat and he sank down onto the floor, burying his face in his hands, no longer able to prevent the tears. He would have given everything to erase this memory from his mind. There had been a time where he would have preferred the eternal punishment if only oblivion had been granted. But he knew how much pain this could cause others.

His icy hands pressed against his eyeballs so violently that bright lights exploded in front of his eyes, pain shooting into his brain to prevent him from squeezing them. He would have gone blind, but against mental images not even physical blindness would help. By the time Jens dared to open his eyes again there was a fine trace of blood running down his forehead, and one second later a stream of tears broke from his eyes that robbed him of consciousness.

When Jens had regained the control over himself again h had already made up his mind.

He longed to see even the horribly twisted creature from his dreams. Anything that would remind him of how it had been, anything that could prove him that maybe there still was hope, in the most unnatural sense – anything was welcomed.

He had to fall asleep again.

\---

The figure was kneeling again, deeply sunken into its prayers and incarnation in a language that Jens could either not understand or that was spoken so quietly that the words came out twisted. As Jens set one foot onto the dusty floor it rose silently and looked at him with the eyes that made his heart stop.

“Are you...?” Jens whispered, not daring to pronounce the name that he had not spoken in all the years.

“I am a shadow,” the person whispered sadly, eager eyes wandered from Jens’ head to feet.  
“How have you returned?”

“That was easy,” Jens replied with a dry mouth as he tried to stand this gaze.

“Can’t you remember our dome?”

“Can I remember?” it whispered and took a step closer to Jens. Pale, bony fingers appeared from under the cloth and lingered in front of his cheek for a second before they drew back.

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” Jens asked, still not able to talk loudly out of an unreasonable fear.

“Touch me. Please. I beg you. This is all I long for.”

“Is it?” A faded smile crept over pale lips, the fingers returned and despite their deadly cold they left a burning trace on Jens’ skin. He closed his eyes and did not breathe until the touch abruptly broke, only to return in a softer caress a moment later. Jens opened his eyes.

“All those years, and I’ve wanted nothing but your touch.” He looked to the floor as tears threatened to overcome him once again.

“Tell me, why?”

“I cannot tell you. I cannot speak of the past,” he replied, forcing Jens’ chin up to look into its eyes.

“But you can make me. You can unleash me once and for all.”

“So is this my task?”

The laugh that the man brought forth was as sad as the rest of it and its surroundings. He took a step back and spread his arms around, all while looking at Jens.

“You still believe in those tasks?”

“I do,” Jens replied simply.

“There has to be a reason why I am here. Why I get here... in my sleep, beyond the gates of our reality. Maybe my task is to save you. There has to be a reason why God gave me this power.”

“God?” The laugh was no longer sad but full of poison and bitterness, so eerie that it could almost be described as evil.

“No, god has not given you this, I can say most definitely. God would never have brought you back to me, you can believe me this. God wants me here, chained, according to his divine plan. Within my eternal punishment where I am bound to either eternally beg him for forgiveness or endure worse each day. But I, like you, never gave up home that eventually I would be free.”

Jens shivered, suddenly overcome by an urge to back away and run. Just as there was no doubt to who the figure was there was no doubt that this was real. And his curse now was no longer a god-given gift to fulfil his task. It was a true curse, dark and evil and poisonous.

“What can I do?” he whispered thinly. Instead of running, declining the offer that came straight from Hell, this was the only thing he could do. The overwhelming temptation to turn everything back to where it had been consumed every voice of reason.

“What does it take to break a curse? What does it take to wake the princess?”

He approached Jens, who still stood frozen, but did not touch him again.

“You could join me in Paradise. I wouldn’t be this way anymore. It would all be like it was, but it would be eternity. Isn’t that what you always wanted? What you’ve been yearning for? I stand in front of you like this, but you know who speaks from these withered lips. Free me, and we shall be together.”

He turned back to face the only dusty window in the adjacent room. It was covered in cobwebs and dirt which turned it opaque, yet he seemed to be scanning the wastelands that had to lay in front of it for something.

“I know I do not seem trustworthy,” he said with a deep sigh on his lips, and it shook Jens that he suddenly seemed to be speaking the way he had used to write.

“But if I’m released I can leave behind this broken incarnation of mine and take back the body in which I used to live. Many do not know that this is possible, but as I said- I never gave up hope. I called for you, and it seems that your subconscious answered and brought you here.”

“Why would I believe you?” Jens croaked. The world around him suddenly seemed to turn and he clutched his stomach while dizziness threatened to overtake him.

“No matter if you trust me or not,” his opposite answered, “as long as you yearn to turn back time you will face me each night. Because deep down you know that you want me.”

Jens shut his eyes, welcoming the blackness as he fell again, deeper and deeper, accompanied by an echo of the voice that still included the past softness hidden beneath. Then he hit the ground.


	3. Kiss of Death

Christmas had passed and soon the new year was to begin, but for Jens there would be no new start. He knew he would die this way, but it was better than facing his temptation every night. Jens had been released from hospital prior to Christmas Eve, after the paramedics that Christian had called in worry had surprisingly found him, undercooled and bleeding, at the apparent end of the cave.

He hadn’t slept a second since.

Sleep was threatening to overcome him at every second, but he was afraid of facing the temptation again, afraid that maybe he would give in this time. Maybe he had told the truth. Maybe this was the only way, and maybe everything would be like it had been. Maybe they would be back, having defied Death and pain for the first time in history. Maybe Greek myths were true after all.

For days Jens had been staring at the bare walls, locked in his room even after Christian had returned. And even if his friend was worried. What did he care?

During those previous days Jens had often asked himself about the meaning of the words in his dream, and if this dream had even been a dream. The words of the figure – he dared not yet to call it by another name – clearly suggested that he was more than just dreaming, but despite all of his experiences Jens could not really believe in something supernatural as this.

Of course he wished that it would all be true. He wished his happiness back, his band, the ability to play the guitar without breaking into tears. He missed waking up without those images in his mind, and above all he missed his best friend. He remembered the way he had felt immediately after, although the days were a blur of pain. How this could have happened... he couldn’t explain it to himself. But he had always thought that he could have turned it around somehow, if he only had known.

Jens’ mind was as restless as never before, but his body did not share this feeling. He was in a constant frozen state of tiredness which slowed down body, mind and everything. He couldn’t feel time, only roughly guess the hour by the light that fell through his window. He had gotten up because of the danger to fall asleep if he stayed in bed any longer.

It was the clear desire to see the figure again that kept him awake. He didn’t know if this was true or just something with which his mind wanted to deceive him, a test from heaven or a trap from hell. He was afraid that he couldn’t stand the temptation if he was back in this room, was afraid of what could happen. Would it really become what the figure had described? Was there really a way to release souls from the eternal punishment and make them return to life? Was it nothing but an illusion and nothing would happen if he gave in? Would he burn?

Jens turned his head as far as he managed to as he meant to hear the door slamming somewhere in the house. He tried to listen but lost focus soon after beginning to try to distinguish a clear sound from the chaos of murmurs in his mind. His head crashed onto the table as he lost the concentration and he lifted it back up just in time before he would have fallen asleep.

Jens knew that it couldn’t go on this way, he knew that he would either fall asleep naturally or die. But if his body would have been able to put him to sleep this already would have happened. His pure desperation and willpower kept him awake, and he knew that he wouldn’t fall asleep until he died.

Then his eyes, in front of which the vision was merely blurry, fell onto the shifting image of a small, white bottle.

His sleep had never given him enough rest when he had wandered. But if his subconscious had sent him into the place of these dreams, was it his subconscious that kept him awake? If he refused against what it was telling him by drifting into chemically induced sleep, would he have tricked it? Would he find rest?

The question was too much for Jens’ sleep-deprived eyes, but nearly automatically his hand moved towards the bottle of sleeping pills. He stood up, supporting himself by leaning onto the edge of his desk, and poured some of the pills into his hand which was shaking heavily. When he swallowed the pills he already collapsed onto his bed, his legs giving in at last.

\---

There was a soft breeze upon the dried-out wheat fields, yet the air still was thick and heavy. The sickly yellow clouds announced hail while the hot air dragged Jens down like a heavy weight crushing down on his shoulders.

He still was unsafe on his feet; the brief amount of rest during his fall had not eased the exhaust. He still didn’t know what this place was but he knew that he was back in it. A feeling deep inside told him that now he had to go on, and despite his fear of facing the temptation again there was something that made him know that, if he collapsed inside of this dream, there was something worse expecting him.

As an attempt he made a step forwards, then another one. His third step already made him stumble, his vision began to blur again, but he was able to make out his aim in the close distance: the black castle that stood as desolated as the first time he had seen it. It took all his power to convince himself to make another step so that his body could go on.

The black stone stairs were as cold as ice.

Jens felt the releasing blackness in his mind, the feeling of nothingness and rest that lasted too short. Trembling on his whole body he found himself kneeling in front of the copper fire basin that still cast smoky heat over the dark chamber that was already so familiar.

He gasped and looked up into the eyes of the figure that stood above him, features barely visible in the dim light, and struggled to get to his feet. Lightly the figure stretched out an arm to take Jens’ hand and pulled him up to lock him in a short but tight embrace. The well-known eyes shone more than ever as he let go and stepped back.

“I missed you,” he simply said.

“I was afraid,” Jens replied and lowered his head in fear and shame. Upon not receiving an answer he went back into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around his knees. It didn’t please him to be in such a vulnerable position in this place, but still he felt as if all energy had been sucked out of his body. At least he was able to think and see relatively clearly.

“You slept a while when you got here. Why did you do this?” the figure asked after having looked at him again.

“Do what?” Jens asked and recoiled as the figure kneeled down next to him to touch his hair.

“You didn’t sleep since you last were here.”

“I told you I was afraid.”

“Do you want to end up the way I do? Do you want to be robbed of any chance that would allow us to be together?”

“Why even did you do it in first place?” Jens himself was surprised by the way he shouted these words, but when he looked at the figure it was silent except for the eyes that seemed to scream to him. And it was that moment in which he realized that, behind this dark facade that seemed to have no connection to the past and only wanted to tempt him, was the deeply flawed boy from once ago who did not long to have the time turned back. Who longed for release the way he had once done.

With an insane scream Jens buried his head between his knees and dug his fingernails into his upper arms, blending out the reason that told him to stop the pain that would lead nowhere. But even though he felt the pain he wouldn’t stop, because the pain he needed to outdo only increased. For when he felt the pain he knew this was real.

Jens fell down sideways onto the floor. His head hit the cold stone but he didn’t even realize it anymore because the flood of thoughts rose above everything else. And suddenly he understood how someone could do such a thing.

”Jens?

The pained scream had ripped Christian out of his half-asleep state, making him wide awake suddenly. The voice clearly belonged to Jens, and if the worry had not been great enough already the sound swelled into a scream that only a person in excruciating pain could eject.

“Jens?” Christian cried again when he left his room and the sound suddenly subsided. When he knocked onto his roommate’s door the answer was nothing but silence.

Jens couldn’t tell whether or not he had blacked out before he came to his senses again. Kneeling on the floor of the room he stared into the fire without a sound or movement, still in a haze of shock and pain the realization had brought him. He was alone, and from far beyond there seemed to be something calling his name. Jens could not grasp where it came from nor hear the words clearly.

It had been a minute of knocking in vain when Christian gave up with reddened, burning knuckles. He pressed his forehead against Jens’ door and tried to gather sane thoughts when suddenly his eyes fell onto a telephone list, pinned onto the wall next to their telephone.

“Jens,” a beautiful, soft voice whispered. Jens could hear it clearly but was afraid to face the direction from which it came, fearing another breakdown. There was still blood dripping from his arms.

“Jens,” it repeated and he could see a shadow kneeling down next to him. He forced himself to look and regretted it on an instant as he faced the one gaze that he was sure he could not stand. The voices in his mind had fallen silent.

”Mrs. Ludwig? Please, it is important. Has Jens ever suffered from extreme nightmares?”

“What?” Jens’ mother asked, alarmed.

“Nightmares,” Christian repeated.

“Screaming in his sleep. ...Suffering.”

“Oh my god.” He could almost see her going pale on the other side of the phone, and the following words seemed rather spoken to herself.

“Of course,” she whispered.

“Back when... he didn’t... he can’t! Where is Jens? How is Jens?”

“He’s locked in his room,” Christian answered truthfully, as calmly as possible.

“Silent now. I don’t know-“

“For the love of God,” Jens’ mother screamed.

“Open that door! For the love of god, open that door as fast as you can!”

“Tobi,” Jens whispered, choking back tears.

“How?”

“You’ve changed,” his best friend said instead of an answer. Tobi regarded him with a saddened gaze, quietly reaching out to grasp Jens’ hand.  
“Of course I’ve changed,” Jens said.

“And you. You don’t look like you did minutes ago. How can you now return... this way?”

Tobi gently squeezed Jens’ hand into his. The young man realized that it was warm.

“Because you’ve made up your mind.”

Christian was calling Jens’ name over and over again. From his mother he could not get another word than the ones she kept repeating and he was at a point where he did not care about Jens’ valued privacy anymore. What Mrs. Ludwig had said sounded serious, too serious to ignore it or brush it off as an overly sensitive mother.

Not thinking of consequences to his shoulder Christian took a deep breath and slammed his body against the door.

There were voices screaming in his head again, calling his head, dragging him back into blackness and the world where he would be alone. Jens refused against these voices with body and mind as he looked into Tobi’s eyes, speechlessly.  
“This is impossible,” he finally whispered.

“It was never me who didn’t stop believing, Jens,” Tobi said, and at the sound of his voice Jens’ heart clenched painfully.

“It was always you.”

The door gave in as a piercing agony shot through Christian’s arm. Sharply drawing in air he clutched his shoulder, but his look instantly fell onto his friend’s body on the bed that looked peacefully asleep. Next to him stood an open bottle of sleeping pills. Blood stained his bed sheets. His chest was heaving and sinking only lightly.

“Maybe it was my subconscious,” Jens whispered while the pounding of his heart increased until he thought his chest was to explode. Something was pulling on him already but he was not willing to give up this moment just yet. He wanted it to last forever, wanted to turn back time. Turn back time... How do you wake the princess?

Without breaking the gaze between himself and Tobi he stood up and pulled his friend up with him. While they were touching there was nothing pulling Jens back anymore, but he felt that, if he let go, there would be nothing to hold him.

He let go of Tobi’s hand to slid an arm around his waist and lift him up the few inches that it took for him to reach Tobi’s lips.

While Christian was still desperately shaking Jens’ body in an attempt to awake him he felt his heart skip. In an instant reaction he pressed his hands onto Jens’ chest, pressuring his friend’s heart to go on, but all his attempts were in vain. Jens’ heart would not beat anymore.

Jens felt the voices in his mind shattering as if a connection had suddenly cut off. His knees went weak and he went down for a second in which Tobi slid his own arm around Jens’ waist, preventing him from crashing onto the floor by letting him down softly and slowly. Jens cupped Tobi’s cheek with his hand, fingers fluttered over his skin before they ran through his hair. Their surroundings had changed, but, engaged in each other’s touch, none of the two men realized.

It was the only thing he had not wanted to let go of. It was the only thing that giving up on had been a sacrifice. It was the only thing that had held him back for so long.

And now he had it back.


End file.
